Tropes you're a sucker for?

Xanatos Gambit. (WARNING: TVTROPES LINK)

Jessy Kharbanda said:

Is there any tropes that always manage to reel you in?

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I have a soft spot for foodie romances, especially if there's an unusual twist to them. Like Betina Krahn's The Marriage Test, which is a medieval foodie romance. I'd love to read something with Thai or Indian or Sri Lankan cuisine. Sex and sambol.

When it comes to SF, I love good worldbuilding. I don't even mind it being too detailed if I've been drawn into the story by then.

Lost worlds and lost things. I'm a giant sucker for unsolved mysteries being found after many years.

Oh yeah, and good food descriptions, like QoS, but in fantasy settings. If a book has enough description of feasts and foods to make a cookbook, I'm happy.

I guess I have the same primary suckerisms you do.

I love "the promised one" stories. And prophecies. Yes, prophecies. Nom nom.

Badass Normal.

I like stuff which focuses on character.

Some of my favourite tropes(I'll spare you and not like to TVTropes):

There Is No Kill Like Overkill, Too Dumb To Live, Wham Line/Episode, Meaningful Name, They Do, Crowning Moment of Funny/Awesome/Heartwarming, I Knew It, the Badass tropes,etc.

I pretty much live and die with the "one sane man" trope. It's usually more of a sane cadre, but -- yea, satire.

Is it just me, or is EVERYthing a trope these day?

Alpha Echo said:

Is it just me, or is EVERYthing a trope these day?

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It's not just you.

Alpha Echo said:

Is it just me, or is EVERYthing a trope these day?

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I was writing a critical scene that I thought had to be a trope. Had to. Mother/daughter conflict where the daughter breaks free from her manipulative mother. It dug up decades of resentments, too. I expected to find some variant of:

"I care because it makes me look good"
"I only care when other people are watching"
"I'll make you so neurotic about turning into me, you'll turn into me"
"No, mother, I'm not you"

and about 30 others. Was I just doing a bad job looking, or is there just a dearth of mother/daughter (or maybe it's just F/F) tropes?

I don't know if I'd call it a trope, but I love when the protagonist has to go beyond his comfort zone, moving into unfamiliar, uncomfortable environs, having to do things he doesn't know how to do, and taking the reader with him.

Alpha Echo said:

Is it just me, or is EVERYthing a trope these day?

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The point of TV Tropes is to basically codify (tropify?) everything that happens in stories, so I think it's a feature, not a bug.

0th law of stories- Everything is a trope.

Love triangles. Classic.

But my favorite is probably (and I don't know the name for this one. And NO, I'm not going to tvtropes to look it up or I'll get no writing done today. ) is something along the lines of:

MC has to make a choice where the outcomes of both are not optimal. And the choice boils down to which one is the least not optimal.

Then the ending is not really happy, it's just...less sad?

Alpha Echo said:

Is it just me, or is EVERYthing a trope these day?

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Ha. That's just what I was thinking.

I like secret twins and lost treasure and the hero who grows to be an unstoppable force.

Oh, animal tropes.

I like anything to do with cheetahs, unless they're being slaughtered for their skins or something similarly depressing.

I like stories with sharks too, unless they're being slaughtered for their fins or are just there to eat people until they're killed.

Magnificent Bastard
My all time favorite

soapdish said:

Love triangles. Classic.

But my favorite is probably (and I don't know the name for this one. And NO, I'm not going to tvtropes to look it up or I'll get no writing done today. ) is something along the lines of:

MC has to make a choice where the outcomes of both are not optimal. And the choice boils down to which one is the least not optimal.

Then the ending is not really happy, it's just...less sad?

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That one might be the Lesser of Two Evils trope?
(oops my fingers slipped and fell into TV tropes)

Mooky, take a look at the parent trope index?

I'm feeling very evil right now.

The protagonist has been wronged and sets out to get revenge.

I've been reading a lot of pretty original literary stuff lately, but I will say I love the love triangle, as long as it's done right with a bunch of other different factors thrown in.

I HATE the hopeless female looking for her night in shining armor and ignoring that the annoying man right in front of her is her true love. Haven't read one of those in a long time and hope not to.

Rina Evans said:

I'm feeling very evil right now.

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You forgot this:

I'm so not clicking that link.

Alpha Echo said:

I've been reading a lot of pretty original literary stuff lately, but I will say I love the love triangle, as long as it's done right with a bunch of other different factors thrown in.

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Right. There has to be something a little fresh about it, or else it doesn't work for me. I actually love to see that trope played with in new and interesting ways.

Right now I'm reading Wicked Girls about two girls who met for one day at age 11 and somehow ended up charged for murder...they turn their lives around and run into each other 20 years later.

Not sure what trope that is, but it's so far very good and different from anything else I've read.